Early autumn re-runs: How to fold a fitted sheet

This post appeared originally on 19 January 2009. If having standards is a crime then I'm guilty.


I have occasional occasion to house and dog sit for an unnamed friend. This unnamed friend is someone I love like a brother and my life would be far less rich than it is without him in it. That said, he's not the most gifted housekeeper I've ever met and it's not an unusual thing for me to spit shine his house while he's out of town. I'm not the uptight, retentive person this is sounding like, really. But there are certain standards that until I met this unnamed friend, I assumed every one learned to maintain from childhood on.

As I said before, I'm not uptight and retentive, but there are limits to how much slovenliness I'll chalk up to a quirky personality even when I love the quirky personality like a brother. Well, the last time I was over there I opened his hall closet and saw before me a collection of wadded up sheets and pillow cases that make me shake my head even now. Someone claims no one ever told him how to fold a fitted sheet and so he just wads them into a ball and shoves them into a linen closet until he needs one. Appalling. Appalling! Am I the only one out there who had a grandmother around to impart these kinds of life skills? I mean, what kind of an adult can't fold a fitted sheet?

Without asking for a show of hands I know that there are far more unable-to-fold-a-fitted-sheet people out there than I want to know about. So in the spirit of public mindedness, I found a public service video that explains in simple, approachable terms, how to fold a fitted sheet. The video even stars a middle-aged man who's wearing a wedding ring, so that way no one's masculinity need be bruised in learning this vital life skill. So ladies and gentlemen, I now give you How To Fold a Fitted Sheet. Lights down please.

Early autumn re-runs: Whither happiness?

This post appeared originally on 29 October 2008 and it's about an article in The Atlantic I'd read on a flight home the day before. Two years later, I think about the article's points regularly. Now that's some kind of writing. I checked and the link still works.


On a related topic, and before I dive back into the world of residential design, there's a great article in this month's Atlantic magazine. Paul Bloom wrote a thought-provoking piece on the intersection of Philosophy and Psychology. I read it on my flight home to Florida the other day and it's been lodged in my fore brain ever since. Read his work here.

But what’s more exciting, I think, is the emergence of a different perspective on happiness itself. We used to think that the hard part of the question “How can I be happy?” had to do with nailing down the definition of happy. But it may have more to do with the definition of I. Many researchers now believe, to varying degrees, that each of us is a community of competing selves, with the happiness of one often causing the misery of another. This theory might explain certain puzzles of everyday life, such as why addictions and compulsions are so hard to shake off, and why we insist on spending so much of our lives in worlds —like TV shows and novels and virtual-reality experiences—that don’t actually exist.

The shape of induction cook tops to come

I love induction cook tops. I say it all the time. They're smarter, faster and more efficient than any other cooking technology out there. Induction may be new in the US, but it is here to stay. I keep up with new developments in the induction world and yesterday I stumbled upon this photo.

Big whoop, right? Well it is a big whoop because it's the first induction cook top on the market that dispenses with circular coils. here it is up close.

That's the 93cm Continuum Induction Hob from De Detreich, and the the world's first flexibly zoned induction cook top. Right now, it's only available in the UK but this is how they will all look and operate within the next two years, mark my words. By flexibly zoned I mean that the surface interacts with whatever pot or pan gets placed on it, regardless of the pot's size. You use the same controls for a Dutch over as you would a small saucepan and the cook top "knows" how big the metal surface is that's sitting on it and adjusts itself accordingly.

Let me explain a little bit.

Here's a particularly good induction cook top from GE Monogram. See the circles? It has round electromagnets underneath those circles. They're round because that's what people expect a burner to look like.

Electric burners are also round and they're round because gas burners are round.

Gas burners are round partially due to the way that gas functions, but that was lead by the woodstoves that proceeded the widespread adoption of gas. Since pots have been round ever since the dawn of pottery, it made sense to have round burners. However, not all pots and pans are round.

This is an All-Clad roasting pan. I like to make gravy right in the roasting pan after I remove a bird when I'm making a big meal.

Similarly, if I'm trying to boil sweet potatoes, boil regular potatoes, steam broccoli, reduce a sauce and make gravy at the same time, I run out of burners. With a zoned cook top, I'm not limited to the number of available burners. I'm only limited by the number of pots I can fit on the cook top.

It's genius. It's genius and it's definitely the shape of things to come.

All the way from the Dominican Republic, Jorge Aguayo checks in

I wrote a post about cement tiles from Aguayo last May and it launched a discussion and cement tile love-fest in the comments that followed the post. Yesterday, Jorge Aguayo himself left another comment on that thread and I wanted to make sure that more people saw what he had to say.

Greetings from the Dominican Republic! I'm kind of disappointed that I only got to discover this great discussion today! It is really awesome that cement tile has made a comeback such as this. If any of you would like to see what the manufacturing process is like at our plant just go to youtube and type in Mosaicos Aguayo.

Jorge Aguayo

And here's the video he mentions:






Thanks Jorge! You can find out more about Industrias Aguayo on their website. When you're ready to buy some Aguayo cement tile, I highly recommend that you purchase it from Avente Tile in Los Angeles. Avente sells online and ships worldwide. So from the Dominican Republic to Los Angeles to wherever you are, these tiles are available.

Amusing British night light

This is the Martyr, designed by The Play Coalition.

It makes me laugh. It fits those enormous British wall sockets perfectly. I wonder if there's a North American version in the works.